gurugeorge

I've said this on this board before, but I think it bears repeating: in these discussions, I don't think enough attention is paid to distinguishing which historical Jesus are we talking about?

After all, the fully-fledged, miracle working, amazing, inspiring Jesus Christ of the Synoptics and the traditional churches, is himself a historical Jesus.

But surely even the apologists on this board would say there's nothing to prove this fully-fledged man-God ever existed? Who is left, amongst apologists, who will defend the fully-fledged Jesus Christ of the synoptics as a historical personage? I don't think there are many. To take the most obvious point, as many have pointed out, if that Jesus had lived, he would have made a much bigger splash in the outside world than he evidently did, or at least some external evidence of some of the more outstanding miracles attested in the Gospels would have been found.

So if we start to "whittle him down to size", we are left with a successsion of paler and fainter possible historical Jesuses, none of whom is sufficient to support the traditional Church image of our Lord and Saviour, come to earth to redeem our sins, etc., etc.

Which leaves me with the question: what are apologists defending when they defend a historical Jesus who is nothing but a pale shadow of the Real Thing?

Why do they fight this admirable rearguard action in the fields of minutiae against the slightest suggestion that there might not have been a historical Jesus, when the character whose genuine historicity they are defending can have been, at most, only some obscure preacher or revolutionary, who by some equally obscure process became deified?

Alf

I think it is an example of the christian's notoric habit of wanting to have the cake and eat it as well.

You don't believe Jesus existed? Absolutely most historians AGREE that Jesus really did exist, are you going against the concensus???

Ok, so now you believe. Then surely you must accept that the gospels are for the most part true. Sure, there may be some appearant conflicts due to interpretations but put emphasis on "appearant". For the most part, they all agree on the story of a 100% human and 100% divine and 200% full of himself miracle worker who was born by a virgin, got crucified and rose on the third day to save all mankind from sin!

Err... you don't believe that? Why are you so selective? You agree that Jesus existed and yet the books that tell about his life are not accepted? What do you accept about Jesus then?

See how this logic goes? On one hand, if you say Jesus does not exist they align themselves with the historians who have a minimal Jesus figure who was a plain person who did some ethical teaching perhaps and got crucified and had the name Jesus and then the moment you accept that image they jump to the full fledged gospel Jesus who is miracle worker, virgin born and crucified and risen and fully divine and all full of it.

This is also why I don't really care much for historians when they are defending their "Jesus most likely existed" view. Yes, it might be true that some guy named Jesus really did exist but it is not that Jesus the christians are talking about. When they refer to Jesus they talk about their miracle worker etc etc and that Jesus has never existed - period. This is why I am an MJer and I think those historians are wrong who claim that Jesus most likely really did exist.

Alf

jakejonesiv

You are absolutely correct. I have found the "Colalition of the Historical Jesus" to be made up of a very shaky alliance of Christians and non-Christians. All argue for a historical Jesus, but mean quite different things.

It is a great mistake, and one that I have made, to assume that because a person argues for a historical Jesus that they are in any way a Christian apologist.

Jake Jones IV

gurugeorge

Agreed, many here who support the HJ position are rationalists who simply find it plausible.

Well, of course, it's understandable how rationalists could support such a position - the idea that there was an obscure Jewish preacher/revolutionary at the root of the phenomenon of Christianity is after all a position that's not completely implausible!

But why would apologists fight for such a minimal shred of historicity, tooth and nail, when already we have departed a million miles away from any sort of historical Jesus that could properly be called religious and worthy of the worship of however many millions of Christians there are in the world?

i.e., once the fully-fledged Jesus Christ as a historical character is rendered doubtful, what is there left to defend, and how is defending the historicity of some obscure preacher at the root of the phenomenon defending Christianity? What do apologists think they are doing when they do this?

aa5874

But, isn't it also a greater mistake to argue for the historicity of Jesus without presenting verified evidence of his historicity.

For example we already have a description of a creature called a 'mermaid which I regard as mythological. If someone claims that mermaids in fact exist or existed, that person should have some information to corrobarate that statement.

Now, with regards to the historicity of Jesus, I have noticed, time after time, that those who are of the HJ view do not present any corroboration whatsoever of their position but actually spend most of their time refuting the views of others.

I am actually waiting for an HJer to lay down a comprehensive detailed analysis of his position.

aa5874

I am of the opinion that plausibilty is not a criteria for historicity. A 'unicorn ' is a plausible creature but is not known to exist, so also are 'mermaids'. In fact all believers probably think their Gods are plausible.

If a person has a view that Jesus is historic, he must put forward some verified information, some evidence that can be examined by others for its veracity.

If a person claims Jesus is historic without any evidence, that person would probably be mistaken for an 'apologist'.

Toto

Christianity is based on certain alleged historical events. If you can prove that those events never occurred, Christianity must be false. So the apologist needs to keep open the possibility that something at least vaguely resembling the gospel story might have happened. If they have that, they can spin all sorts of plausible-sounding stories. But without that, they have to go out and get a real job.

Clivedurdle

I might be kinder - I might allow them to work in myth factories like Hollywood or the fiction and fantasy sections of big publishers!

The G Man

I suspect there is a distinction between historicist interpretation of Christian writings and active "historical Jesus" research. Simply positing that some sort of historical Jesus of Nazareth (without being too specific about) is the best way of explaining the trajectory of later Christian thought is a different sort of hypothesis to one about what he was actually like. I suspect most apologists - who are able to make the distinction - would focus on the former rather than the latter.

James Brown

I wrote this on another forum last year:

Here's a modern-day analogy: Suppose I and a friend drive to the mall to do some shopping, but when we arrive, we find the parking lot is empty. Whoops? Where are all the cars, and therefore, where are all the people?

So I make a hypothesis: The mall is closed today.

Nonsense, my friend argues. The mall is open every day. Everyone knows that.

I say, that may be, but if it were open today, then we would expect to see a lot of cars. So where are they?

So we drive around a bit, and my friend sees a couple of cars parked here and there.

There, he says. There are some cars, and if only one car is in the parking lot, then your hypothesis is invalid. Therefore, the mall is open.

C'mon, I say. A few cars? When we should be seeing many?

Why else would these few cars be here? my friend asks.

Lots of reasons, I counter. Maybe a battery is dead. Maybe someone used this parking lot as a drop-off for carpooling. Who knows?

Exactly, says my friend. You can speculate all you want about alternative reasons for parking here, but you're just guessing. The most likely reason why someone parked a car in the mall parking lot is because they went into the mall, and they wouldn't do that unless the mall is open.

It's unfortunate we can't ask the owners of these few cars why they parked here, I say. Then we could know for certain. But I'll say it again. Even the presence of a few cars in this parking lot does not counter the logical expectation that there ought to be many cars here.

Before I stretch this analogy to the breaking point, I hope I made myself clear. It's a simple question: if Jesus was the most important human ever born in the world, and if he performed countless wonders never even heard of before (so many that, according to John, all the books in the world couldn't be filled with them), and if he did what no single person in the history of humanity was able to do, namely rise from the dead, then wouldn't you think that his closest followers would talk about that a bit? Wouldn't detractors talk about it? How about those who were just curious? It makes no sense to say that they DID talk about it, but only orally, and afterwards when writing letters they didn't need to talk about him because everyone already knew everything there was to know about him, particularly when new believers were entering the fold every year.

Yet in all the epistles, not one parable is repeated. Not one miracle is wondered at. Not one Gospel character is lifted up as a villain or a hero or an example of how to live. No pilgrimages are made to visit the empty tomb (at least during the first century, before the gospels were wide-spread.). No shrines are erected on Golgotha, or the Upper Room, or in Gethsemane. I hear more about the life of Jesus in a children's Sunday School lesson than I do in all of the epistles. Clinging to a handful of unusual references that could have other explanations in no way satisfactorily answers the simple question:

Where in the world is Jesus?